Christmas Message 2023

Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, the Grinch, and the Elves… they all have the night off tonight.

I want to talk about Christmas and all that it holds for us. First off, we need to count our blessings that we still have the freedom to openly celebrate the coming of our Lord. There are places in this world where if we did openly celebrate Christmas, our lives could be in danger.

This is a holy time of year for believers, just as Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, is very special for us as well.
I could talk about the fact that December 25th isn’t the real day Jesus was born, or the spiritual meanings behind Christmas trees and candy canes, but I want to talk about the fact that as the saying goes, “Jesus is the reason for the season.”

Gen. 3:15 (God speaking to satan)

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Here we have the first mention of our coming Messiah, the good news that the woman’s “seed” (Christ) would ultimately defeat satan and his seed.

Isaiah 7:14
“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.”

Immanuel: means “God with us.” So why didn’t Mary name her Son Immanuel as the Scriptures say?

There are many “names” given to Jesus in the Old and New Testaments, and Immanuel is one of them. Isaiah elsewhere prophesied of the Messiah, “He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Jesus was never called by any of those “names” by the people He met in Galilee or Judea, but they are all accurate descriptions of who He is and what He does. The angel said that Jesus “will be called the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32) and “the Son of God” (verse 35), but neither of those were His given name.

The prophet Jeremiah writes of “a King who will reign wisely” (Jeremiah 23:5), and he gives us the name of the coming Messiah: “And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness’” (Jeremiah 23:6, ESV). Jesus was never called “The Lord Our Righteousness” as a name, but we can call Him that! He brings the righteousness of God to us. He is God in the flesh, and the One who makes us righteous.

II Cor. 5:21
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

To say that Jesus would be called “Immanuel” means Jesus is God, and that He dwelt among us in His incarnation, that He is always with us.

We read in the Scriptures that the virgin Mary bore a Son. Two thousand years ago in Bethlehem, we see that baby born and lowered into a feeding trough for a resting place. This baby, as incredible as it seems, is God in the flesh. This baby is God with us. Jesus, as our Immanuel… He is all powerful, all knowing, pure perfection, and He is the love that never fails us.

Miciah 5:2
“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah (F-rah-thah), are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.”

Just think: in the small town of Bethlehem, in a manger, lies the Messiah of the world… wiggling His little toes! The baby that nursed at the breast of Mary and was rocked to sleep in the arms of Joseph was God, and He remains God. Is it any wonder that the shepherds went out and spread the word that the Messiah had come? Is it any wonder that the wise men of His day bowed in worship before Him?

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and as it says in Miciah, it was a small village. Meaning our Messiah entered into this world in a very humble way. If our God wasn’t holy and humble in every way, perhaps Jesus’ birth would’ve come with all sorts of grand fanfare, with trumpets blaring, and beating drums, having a great herald announcing the birth of the Messiah.

Yes, Jesus came from the royal line of David, but by this time the line of David did not have any special prestige. God made a promise to David…

II Sam. 7:16
“Your house and your kingdom will continue before me for all time, and your throne will be secure forever.” (NLT)

Isaiah 11:1
“Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot… yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.” (NLT)

Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:4), but His family lived in Nazareth, an area not held in very high regard. Even Philip said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).

Jesus was not just born behind an inn, in a smelly stable where the donkeys and other animals of travelers were kept, He was born in Bethlehem, at the birthing place of the sacrificial lambs that were offered in the Temple in Jerusalem which Micah 4:8 calls the “Tower of the flock.”

Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes. The Greek word (spar-ganoo) is the root word used in the phrase “swaddling clothes,” and it means “to clothe in strips of cloth.” This is what the priests used to wrap the perfect sacrificial lambs so they wouldn’t get hurt or blemished in any way. Some say these strips of cloth came from the used garments of the high priests.

Luke 2:10-12
“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

When the angels appeared that night to the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, it was not just a declaration of the Good News to simple shepherds, it was a powerful prophetic sign to all of Israel. The news of that night must have spread like wildfire through all the surrounding villages.

Jesus came to make the Father known in a new way, bringing a new covenant… a promise for the generations to come. May our hearts be humbled by the coming of Jesus, that we come to know God in a personal way, and not just intellectually.

It’s difficult to think of a person more humble, vulnerable, and lowly than a newborn baby. The Second Person of the Trinity could have entered creation as the Angel of the Lord, as He did at various times recorded in the Old Testament, but He chose a much more humble way, being born of a virgin.

Even though Jesus was supremely powerful, wise, and glorious, He came to earth as a weak infant, born to a poor family, and lived a sinless life during which He would grow in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man.

Luke 2:51-52 (after Jesus spoke in the temple as a young boy)

“Then He returned to Nazareth with His parents and was obedient to them. And His mother stored all these things in her heart. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.”

If God came to this earth in any other way other than the way in which He did, it would’ve been seen as a prideful entry… His coming was anything but that.

Phil. 2:6
“Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” (NLT)

If Jesus came to the earth with all His power and might, then the Jewish leaders and Romans would not have been able to conspire together to kill him. This wouldn’t have worked out so well for us because Jesus’ death and resurrection was necessary for our salvation.

Jesus came to be with us, to be one of us. Very often at Christmas I’m reminded of the story of “The Man and the Birds.” I know many of you have heard this before, but it bears repeating.

“The Man and the Birds,” by Paul Harvey:

“The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud…At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide-open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching the. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me. That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.

And he sank to his knees in the snow.”

Yes, Jesus came to us as a humble servant. He left His throne in heaven to be One with us… we will never know exactly what it cost Him.

Matt. 11:29
“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Every time I read this Scripture, at the end of it I take in a breath of fresh air and let it out… because it always gives me a real sense of peace and relief, reminding me that God has me, and that there’s nothing to stress about.

Why would Jesus come to us and be one of us?

John 3:16-17
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

Titus 3:4-7
“But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Christmas is a time when we show kindness to one another, we seem to have a little more patience for our neighbor, we tend to be in a giving mood, we give gifts to those we love and care about. When Jesus came to this earth as a baby, God was giving us the greatest gift imaginable, the gift of a life all throughout eternity to be spent with Him.

This little baby boy came to this earth to die for our sins.

Rom. 6:23
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This is the miracle of Christmas… that we would receive God’s “free gift.”

Rom. 10:9-10
“That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Make sure you possess the greatest gift ever given.